WNHAC’s Master Plan, 20 Years Later

April 28, 2013

WHEELING — Inside the yellowing three-ring binder that contains the 20-year-old Interpretive Master Plan for the Wheeling Heritage Area is a glimpse at what Wheeling’s residents then believed the......

Comments

CountryBuck

The broadcast and stage presentation of The Wheeling Jamboree (then known as Jamboree USA) was nearly lost forever when in December 2005 (Belkin Entertainment - Clear Channel) ”Live Nation” (former owners of Wheeling’s Landmark Capitol Theatre) were in corporate transition when the weekly production of the Jamboree live show fell victim to the events surrounding these changes. Immediately the current operators of the Wheeling Jamboree formed the present organization to rescue and preserve the original format and integrity of the weekly Saturday Jamboree show. It has NOT left Wheeling - Wheeling has left it.

richardwhee

Wishful thinking, or Pipe Dreams. Whatever you want to call it. When the worth seeing/listening too Jamboree left it took the tourests with it. The parks are outatanding but they are pricing themselves out of the market

atoddh

Hef:yes the key anchor was JUSA which was turned away.Once that error occured the rest fell apart. Boss:yes there is no inventory of historic structures to reuse now. As an example:the Victorian House Tours depended on patrons of the Jamboree for their traffic.When the Jamboree was turned away,the Tours died out. There is no Downtown tourism now.The occasional festivals are mainly locals. There has not been growth or job creation Downtown for the huge-tens of millions-invested.Just a few have benefitted. The biggest single error was turning away the private plan to revive JUSA in the mid 1990's.The non profits wanted to control the Capitol and Downtown.Now they have nothing but an empty City to control.

WVIH has been,is ,and will be a State financed museum operated by the WVDCH.

Hefner

To pretend that Wheeling is worthy of a tour is as absurd today as it was twenty years ago, actually, more so. Wheeling died the day the music died. Across the airwaves Wheeling became something it wasn't. Listening to Lee Moore, " the coffee drinking night owl" on WWVA or the Saturday night WWVA Jamboree, could put stars in a country family's eyes, however, the reality was less than the dream, and sadly, the people of Wheeling have never come to understand that. There're few who remain who have any recollection of Wheeling at all, and those who see it today cannot imagine that it was ever anything. Rest in peace Wheeling, you have barely outlived the legend you perceived yourself to be.

atoddh

The goal of the huge Federal investment for this project was job creation and adaptive reuse of the Downtown buildings.JUSA was to be the anchor for tourism.(1.)The proposal for JUSA was turned away.The Capitol is mostly dark now.It does not bring in the tours as before.(2.) The buildings have mostly been demolished now at huge public expense.(3.)Most of the Downtown busnesses(eg MH&M,Beckers st al) were run out by the City as a part of this project.Few retailers remain (4.)There was no job creation.In fact the project has resulted in job losses. There is no significant Downtown tourism. The project has been a massive squandering of Federal funds with no positive results or benefits to the City in terms of growth or job creation. Let's not pretend this has worked.It has failed in a big way.Folks take a look around at Downtown.Very little remains now.